Why Hound Chief Primus Odili?

(Chukwuemeka Echezona)

‘Politics is dubious,’ I hear. The blanket conclusion, though beggaring veracity, tends to describe more the duplicitous schemes of wilful traducers of active political figures than it does the nobles who are wilfully made victims of vile political critiquing.

What offence could Chief Primus Odili have committed other than sticking to the demands of his designation as the Chief of Staff to Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State, Nigeria, who finds him worthy of chiefly driving the dictates of the State Government’s creed of expanding the frontiers of credible and developmental governance?

The rising reprehensible reactions upon the approach of Anambra 2021 gubernatorial election are targeted at persons perceived to have strong political influences capable of torpedoing the ambitions of the impertinent patrons of the unruly vendors. None who is of dubitable electoral value is worth the concerted malign of the undercover dirty jobbers. Little wonder why Chief Odili, who has discharged his duties most creditably as a prime performer in Governor Obiano’s brilliant achievements in Anambra, fits the bill for the brand of scathing comments recently circulated about him and his personal interests.

One does not expect the vituperative attacks to stop; it might just be beginning, given the fact that the political turf in Anambra gets more volatile and predatory as electioneering for gubernatorial poll hits up.

In the ageless wisdom of old, our elders instruct. ‘Onodu Ugo adiro Egbe mma,’ summarises the underlying envy and indignation that often inform a foul-spirited lesser fellow’s perception and evaluation of his progressive superior. Yes, the near impeccable flight of eagle the bird (in altitude and glamour) could be disconcerting to its less endowed cousin, the kite.

This tendency pervades the persistent toils of a faceless number to hang odium on Chief Odili’s resplendent stewardship as Chief of Staff in an administration that has unarguably offered priceless freedom and unprecedented vibrant economic activities to Ndi-Anambra even in the face of economic and political discomfiture in other geopolitical enclaves across the country.

It is most worrisome why few individuals who would rather (for some) Chief Odili panders to their wanton whims for mindless material advantages, or (for some others) he yields to their voracious greed for choice privileges in the political calculus of Governor Obiano’s succession, have blindly opted for malicious defamatory publications and other underhand conspiracies. These freely breed, regrettably, on the grossly permissive social media space.

It is given that every responsibility has a price and a prize too, ordinarily. In sane climes, public service majorly tasks the ingenuity of a diligent public servant in advancing good governance: better life for the greater number of the population in a given geopolitical enclave. Such service seldom fails to appeal to the populace who, irrespective of political affiliations, converge in thankful adoption of the common good consequent upon responsive governance. The price becomes the personal sacrifices the public servant makes in attending to the needs of their office - hardly any more.

In our political clime however, individual idiosyncratic indulgences often create disgruntled elements who deliberately conspire to constitute arrant nuisance in the clog of governance. They come with name-calling and other fringe distractions, sparing neither the government nor the governor and his prime aides. They are sworn to subverting the citizens’ acceptance of the government and its agents.

These fellows congregate across partisan divides, often in misty configurations, to hang odium on a functional system. Conscious of the inanity of their mission and the falsity of their professions, they often resort to opprobrious chants and poor storification of doom. They head to deprive their targets the prized gratification for dedicated service: commendations and encomia from the masses. They mind less the far-reaching sores their selfish acts inflict on society.

Just like their previous mendacious campaigns calumniating the person and personal interests of Chief Primus Odili, the office of the Chief of Staff he occupies, and the person and personal interests of Governor Willie Obiano, as well as the Government of Anambra State under his watch, the most recent Corona virus scare by a faceless ‘Citizens Watch’ imputing that the wife of the Chief of Staff, Mrs. Maureen Odili, infected Government House with Corona virus dropped dead on arrival. The blameless lady who visited home from the US to heartily felicitate with the family home has long gone back as healthy as she landed, and neither Primus, Akpokeudike, Osodieme nor any other in Government House said to be Corona infested is down in health.

The sooner the social malcontents vending these crass inanities realised the futility in malicious smears of perceived political foes the better their chances of reforming and fairly contributing to the growth of society.
Again an Ugo metaphor in ‘Mmili malu Ugo salu Ugo aru,’ as an explanatory seals to my rebuke and my counsel. The waters of the rain rather than unsettle the eagle, further animate its glamour.

Chief Odili remains unscathed in all of these, as he would not be distracted from his principal’s target of finishing well, come March 2022.

(Chukwuemeka Echezona: a public affairs analyst writes from Ajalli)